Yves Engler's arrest in Montreal has been labelled an 'attack' on free expression in Canada

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26284554

By Syma Mohammed
Published date: 20 February 2025 21:44 GMT

Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, spoke to the Middle East Eye about Engler’s arrest.

“I think it’s a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada - a country that’s supposed to be a free, democratic society. We’re supposed to speak out about a genocide," Tyrrel told MEE.

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    1 day ago

    It’s not a question of “extremist”. What is or isn’t “extreme” is largely a matter of how far an idea strays from the norm. Some extreme ideas are very good, some extreme ideas are terrible.

    The question, rather, is of purpose, not character. Intolerant speech - that is, speech whose purpose is to limit the rights of specific groups of people to exist - is the only kind of speech that we must be prepared to limit, because without limits on intolerant speech, the intolerant will ultimately abuse their freedoms to strip away freedoms from others.

    This draws a hard line. It clearly defines and delineates what is and is not acceptable. It is a simple and clear rule that any tolerant society must abide by if it is to continue to be a tolerant society.

    For the proof of this, you only need to look at what is happening in the US right now.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
      15·
      21 hours ago

      To you, speaking out against Israel is fine, but to some people it might be antisemitic. Whether or not it is against the rights of someone is actually personal opinion, not for the government to decide

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        19 hours ago

        But we’re not required to evaluate the facts of the case based on what “some people” think. We can objectively examine the content of people’s speech and ask whether it’s intent is to advocate against the basic rights of a group of people or not. Criticising Isreal does not meet that test, despite what the ADL might claim.

        Yes, there are grey areas. Yes, there are hard calls that have to be made. But saying “This is hard” and then throwing up your hands and resorting to free speech absolutism because you can’t handle the difficult work of building a society is just childish.

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            21 minutes ago

            The same way you objectively decide anything else in law. You apply the principles to the facts.

            Your first example there is a gimme; clear and obvious example of antisemitic hate speech. The fact that they’re protesting against Israeli genocide isn’t some magic shield that protects people from criticism. You can protest against the actions of Isreal without declaring that Hitler was right.

            The second one is a grey area. That’s the thing; when you take a serious approach to the problems of the world, instead of fleeing to the simplicity of ideas like free speech absolutism, which require no degree of complex thought, you will inevitably run into grey areas. So I’m not going to give a hard answer on this one because I think it would take a lot of serious thought and debate to come up with a hard answer on it. But I will say that even if it was ruled as intolerant speech, nothing would be lost. You can protest against Isreal and stand up for Palestine without needing to celebrate the actions of Hamas. Those things are not intrinsically linked. So your examples do not demonstrate any kind of underlying flaw with Popper’s principle. Nothing of value is lost if we as a society choose to say that these kinds of speech are unacceptable.